The notions of boundary and border, which overlap yet are not equivalent, inevitably raise issues connected with geography and geopolitics. In the strict sense, they designate markers or lines that circumscribe a territory; they delineate one area and distinguish it from another. As such, they occupy an important place in the modern and Western comprehension of the world: modern borders – known as Westphalian, as they were negotiated during inter-state conferences according to the model that led to the Peace of Westphalia (1648) – map out spaces and nation-states, articulate them, and relate them to each other. The tangible vestiges of imperial undertakings or national movements, they are based on identitary ideologies of inclusion and exclusion. 

A non-place or liminal space par excellence, a border may be understood as a spatial object in transformation. It partitions a whole – or, rather, determines a “segment of reality,” granting it intrinsic value. Tangible though not necessarily visible or embodied, borders or boundaries mark distinct forms of state, nature, materiality. They disrupt continuity. They “separate” digital from analogue, inside from outside, the garden from the expanse, landscape from geography. Some are fixed, rigid, or relatively hermetic; others may be porous, ambiguous, or multiple. Constantly renegotiated, borders also act as transition points, places of encounter and exchange. 

For its 26th edition, the International Garden Festival has invited designers from all over to rethink the notion of border in today’s postcolonial context and to transpose these reflections into a garden environment that blurs disciplines, renegotiates preconceived ideas about garden/landscape, and actively dialogues with visitors.